{"id":3436,"date":"2012-02-07T14:00:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T22:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/?p=3436"},"modified":"2012-02-07T14:00:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T22:00:35","slug":"rush-the-real-target-of-birth-control-mandate-is-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/rush-the-real-target-of-birth-control-mandate-is-the-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Rush: The Real Target Of Birth Control Mandate Is The Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lW-H9mt_jKo?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"360\" height=\"274\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Heritage Foundation article Rush was referring to:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2012\/02\/07\/morning-bell-obamacare-awakens-a-sleeping-giant\/\"><strong>Obamacare Awakens a Sleeping Giant<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when that cause is a political one, with a sole piece of legislation as its principal target. But when that law eviscerates the very foundation of religious liberty in America as protected under the First Amendment, it should not be surprising that Catholics and Jews, evangelical Christians, and mainline Lutherans alike find common cause in defense of their liberties.<\/p>\n<p>Such is the case with the firestorm of opposition to Obamacare and the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2012\/02\/07\/2012\/02\/01\/obamacares-contraception-mandate-tramples-on-religious-liberty\/\">Obama Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attack on religious liberty<\/a>. Under a new Obamacare mandate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the White House is mandating that virtually all religious employers, with the exception of churches, provide health care coverage for contraception \u00e2\u20ac\u201d including abortion-inducing drugs \u00e2\u20ac\u201d thereby trampling upon their constitutionally guaranteed free exercise of religion. And it is this mandate that has caused a vehement response in churches and synagogues across the country.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, the head of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, warned that the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 70 million Catholics are ready to go to war with the Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dictates, <a href=\"http:\/\/newyork.cbslocal.com\/2012\/02\/06\/catholic-league-poised-to-go-to-war-with-obama-over-mandatory-birth-control-payments\/\">saying<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church. This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Donohue\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarks follow those of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/news\/2012\/12-012.cfm\">U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/religion\/9064926\/Roman-Catholic-leaders-criticise-Barack-Obama-over-healthcare.html\">at least 153 Catholic bishops<\/a>across the country who have weighed in with opposition to the mandate. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees and suffer the penalties for doing so,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d wrote Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Michigan. Those penalties include fines imposed by the federal government that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/religion\/9064926\/Roman-Catholic-leaders-criticise-Barack-Obama-over-healthcare.html\">could cost<\/a> larger organizations millions of dollars per year.<\/p>\n<p>The Catholic Church is not alone in its opposition to Obamacare\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s onslaught against religious freedom. David Addington, The Heritage Foundation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vice president of Domestic and Economic Policy, details the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2012\/02\/06\/many-faiths-unite-in-opposition-to-obama-attack-on-religious-liberty\/\">growing ranks of the faithful<\/a> who say the Obama Administration has crossed a very dangerous line. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nae.net\/news\/715-press-release-evangelicals-disappointed-with-white-house-decision-on-conscience-protection\">National Association of Evangelicals commented<\/a> that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The HHS rules trample on our most cherished freedoms and set a dangerous precedent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the <a href=\"http:\/\/matzav.com\/agudah-and-ou-protest-obama-administrations-decision-on-health-benefits\">Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America stated<\/a>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In declining to expand the religious exemption within the healthcare reform law, the Obama Administration has disappointingly failed to respect the needs of religious organizations such as hospitals, social welfare organizations and more.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The <a href=\"http:\/\/matzav.com\/agudah-and-ou-protest-obama-administrations-decision-on-health-benefits\">Agudath Israel of America stated<\/a> its opposition, as did the <a href=\"http:\/\/concordiaandkoinonia.wordpress.com\/2012\/02\/03\/a-statement-on-recent-hhs-decision-and-religious-freedom\/\">Lutheran Church Missouri Synod<\/a> and the<a href=\"http:\/\/assemblyofbishops.org\/news\/releases\/protest-against-hhs\">Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Obama Administration is beginning to feel the pressure. On Sunday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/opinion\/editorials\/story\/2012-02-05\/Kathleen-Sebelius-contraception-exemption\/52975092\/1\">authored an op-ed<\/a> in <em>USA Today<\/em> defending the Obama Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions, claiming that a very narrow exemption to the mandate is evidence that the White House is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153working to strike the right balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s access to critical preventive health services.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That exemption, though, does not apply to institutions like religious schools and hospitals. Sebelius might claim the Administration is offering grace to people of faith, but in fact it is not. In an editorial that ran the same day as Sebelius,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <em>USA Today<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/opinion\/editorials\/story\/2012-02-05\/contraception-mandate-religious-freedom\/52975796\/1?loc=interstitialskip\">agreed<\/a> with those standing on the side of religious liberty, writing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in drawing up the rules that will govern health care reform\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Obama Administration \u00e2\u20ac\u0153galloped over\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the line and violated the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153simple proposition that the government should steer away from meddling in church affairs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The Obama Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions, though entirely counter to the freedom of religion, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2012\/02\/01\/as-heritage-predicted-obamacare-burdens-freedom-of-conscience\/\">should not be surprising<\/a>given the nature of the President\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health care law. Obamacare has given the federal government broad power over one-sixth of the American economy and thereby purports to grant Washington the power to force religious institutions to take actions contrary to their faith. Addington <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2012\/02\/06\/many-faiths-unite-in-opposition-to-obama-attack-on-religious-liberty\/\">writes<\/a> that this kind of concentration of power \u00e2\u20ac\u0153has proved to be a drastic and dangerous experiment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s religious leaders and the faithful have awoken to this wolf at their door and are lashing out in defense of their freedoms. Congress, too, should act now by repealing Obamacare and restoring the religious liberty that is so central to our way of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heritage Foundation article Rush was referring to: Obamacare Awakens a Sleeping Giant It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[2476,5045],"tags":[7011,2346,7013,6953,6667,7016,7012,7014,2692,5149,6548,4,299,7018,7017,99,7010,7015],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}